“My dear Ronnie! How absurd you are. If anybody heard you they might think you were in earnest.”
Hurstmanceaux looked at his sister with a shrewd, appreciative scorn in his eyes.
“They might,” he said gravely. “I am usually in earnest, my dear.”
“I know you are and it is a horrid thing to be,” she replied with petulance. “Earnest people are always such bores.” Then, remembering that she would not produce the effect she desired by abusing him, she changed her tone.
“Dearest Ronald, these persons are coming here to-morrow night. Let me present them to you; and if you would but say a good word for them in the world——”
He was silent.
“I think, you know,” she murmured softly, “that as they bought Gerald’s place they naturally rather look to us all to make things pleasant for them.”
Hurstmanceaux put the white small ringed finger off his coat with a gesture which had sternness in it.
“My dear child, you are Delilah to all men born of Adam; but not to me, not to me, my child, because you are my sister. The Lord be praised for His mercies! If you had not been my sister I should have had no strength against you probably. As it is, I won’t keep bad company, my dear, even to please you.”
“Bad company! They are most estimable people.”